The Historical Society of Orange Park

November 2014 Newsletter

Monthly Meeting

Monday, November 10, 2014 6:30 PM

Clarke House 1039 Kingsley Avenue

Orange Park, Florida 32073

This month we return to the Clarke House for our regular monthly meeting. Our featured speaker will be Mr. Herb Steigelman, Jr., Executive Director and Curator of the Military Museum of North Florida in Green Cove Springs. Mr. Steigelman will describe the exhibits and operations of the museum and its efforts to educate the public on the contributions made by our military veterans. Herbert M. Steigelman Jr. is a retired Marine Corps officer. He graduated from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, with a degree in history and has since earned a master’s degree in management. During his 26 years in the Marine Corps, Herb served as Platoon Commander, Company Commander and Battalion Commander of Marine Corps armored units. He earned the Bronze Star with Combat "V" during his first of two tours in Vietnam. He has had numerous educational assignments including teaching Marine Corps Lieutenants at The Basic School and instructing U.S. Army officers at the US Armor School at Fort Knox Kentucky. He was also the Marine Corps representative to the Armor School. His last position was Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics for the II Marine Expeditionary Force. After retiring from the Marine Corps Herb became the Director of Shipboard Operations for the Marine Corps Maritime Pre-Positioning Program at Blount Island Florida, coordinating the maintenance of 2/3 of the Marine Corps equipment assets spread around the world. Herb is a member of the Board of Directors of the Marine Corps Vietnam Tanker Historical Foundation and is active in several service organizations. We still have several community and fundraising activities scheduled through the end of the year. At our meeting we will be discussing Veterans Day and Hometown Holiday in the Park plus our outing to Thrasher-Horne on November 22. Volunteers are needed to make these events successful. Please let us know how you can participate. Our November meetings also serves as the Annual Meeting of our corporation. We will be electing officers for 2015 so please plan to attend this important meeting and have a voice in the future of our historical society.

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Recent Events

October Meeting At our October meeting we had the privilege of visiting the home of Joe and Mary Ellen DeMarco on Stiles Avenue. Their home was originally constructed in 1926 and is included in the River Road Historic District. Mary Ellen described their efforts at restoration and the discoveries they have made regarding the history of their home as well as its previous owners. She then provided us with a tour of their home followed by refreshments. Our sincere thanks to Mary Ellen and Joe for graciously allowing us into their home and sharing the results of their hard work.

More information about the DeMarco home can be found later in this newsletter. Mary Ellen DeMarco has written an article describing the history of her home and her family’s efforts at restoration.

Fall Festival On October 18 and 19, members of the Historical Society of Orange Park hosted a booth at the Town of Orange Park’s Annual Fall Festival. The festival gets bigger and better each year and thousands of people visited over the weekend. The weather was outstanding. Our members were able to meet many visitors with whom we shared our mission and community activities.

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Moonlight on Magnolia History Walks On Saturday evening, October 25, the Historical Society hosted over 300 visitors at Magnolia Cemetery for Moonlight on Magnolia. Visitors were treated to tours of the cemetery to meet “former residents” of the town to hear their stories and learn about the history of our town. Volunteers portrayed former residents such as Nixon Smiley, Leonidas Wade, Anna Kingsley, Carrie Clark and Nellie Morgan while other volunteers told stories, led tour groups or helped to keeps activities organized and running smoothly.

Moonlight on Magnolia Volunteers Alaa Osman Dakota Garrett Amelia Espinales Avery Kinlaw Aussie Whiting Jeremy Kerr Nate Schirmer Ben Woods Chuck Seader Kenzie Bullen Faith Danielson Art Yeaman Janet Dobson Zinia Basil Vernon Bullock Grier Burrows Lark Garig

Amber Campo Lauren Ellis Mia Moldovanyi Carolyn Clark Luke Gaskins Anthony Paziuk Jordyn Lewis Caitlyn Hayes Julia Cramer John Bowles Ane Nguyen Emma Kiely Faye Irvin Allie Beaudrot Rose Collins Anthony Morris Erica Fox

Shannon Seader Cyrus Lilly Cynthia Cheatwood Van Hogan Brandon Leporati Dick Cheatwood Virginia Hash Darlene Ehrenberg Zeng Michalczyk Samy Collins Kaily Hernandez Alex Lebu Alaina Michalczyk Richard Kim Naza Vega

Our sincere thanks to all of our volunteers. Moonlight on Magnolia could not go on without you. We also give special thanks to Cindy Cheatwood for planning, organizing, staffing and managing the event. She did a tremendous job.

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Scenes from Moonlight on Magnolia 2014

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Upcoming Events

Clay County Historical Society The Clay County Historical Society cordially invites you to their monthly meeting, Monday evening, November 17th at 7:00 PM in the Historical Courthouse, 915 Walnut Street in Green Cove Springs.

In Honor of Veterans Day they will welcome Gary Newman, President of the Vietnam Veterans of America, http://www.vvafsc.org/home, Clay County Chapter that was established on January 9, 2012 and meets the first Saturday of the month at 11:00 AM, with coffee and donuts in the Middleburg VFW. Mr. Newman, President of the Clay County Chapter who served in the US Navy aboard the USS Maddox will discuss “The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution”, dated August 7, 1964, that gave broad congressional approval for expansion of the Vietnam War. For information visit

http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/gulf-of-tonkin-resolution. Everyone is invited to attend and they look forward to seeing you there. There are many wonderful Clay County activities and events to choose from in the communities we call home as we celebrate the very best in this special season of fall, Events, Holidays and Thanksgiving. You and Yours are wished very Happy Holidays and Blessings.

Clay County Public Library Clay County Public Library 1895 Town Center Blvd, Fleming Island Monday, November 3, 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. In the Genealogy and Local History Room “Decluttering your Family Photos Speaker: Chris Bass Sometimes more is not better. Sorting through family photos is hard work. Keeping your family's memories is worth the trouble. Learn how to transfer your photos to a format that can be passed to the next generation. For more information please visit the Genealogy page of the Clay County Library website, http://www.ccpl.lib.fl.us/blog/genealogy/. There you will find information on upcoming meetings as well as previous meetings you might have missed.

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The American Soldier – A Photographic Tribute Members of the Historical Society of Orange Park will meet at the Thrasher-Horne Center for the Arts at 11:30 AM, Saturday, November 22 to view The American Soldier – A Photographic Tribute. This exhibit features photographs of American servicemen and women from the Civil War to the War in Iraq. This exhibit opened in 2007 and has been presented in venues around the country. It has been seen by over 1 million visitors to date. Members of other local historical societies are welcome to join us on November 22 as we visit this special exhibit. For more information on The American Soldier - A Photographic Tribute visit www.thcenter.org/gallerysoldier.html.

Veterans Day Ceremony

The Historical Society of Orange Park and the Town of Orange Park invite you to attend the Annual Veterans Day Ceremony on Tuesday, November 11th at 11am at the Veterans Memorial in Historic Magnolia Cemetery. Please join us as we honor our veterans who have sacrificed on our behalf. This event will mark the third anniversary of the creation of the Veterans Memorial. The funds for the memorial were raised through grants and strong support from many local organizations and inscribed paver sales. Our annual ceremony is made possible by the participation of many local groups including: The American Legion Post #250 Riders, the Patriot Guard, Viet Nam Veterans of America Chapter 1059, the Rolling Thunder Chapter #4, the Arrangers Guild, Garden Club of Orange Park, Orange Park Florist, the Sophia Fleming Chapter of the DAR, The Woman’s Club of Orange Park, NJROTC Color Guard, Orange Park High School, Soloist, Ms. Wanda

Dillaberry, the Clay County Sheriffs Pipes and Drums and the Town of Orange Park. Our ceremony will be conducted by Mrs. Cynthia Cheatwood, President of the Historical Society of Orange Park and Chairman Mr. Van Hogan. Orange Park Mayor, Mr. Steve Howard will be the welcoming speaker. Our Guest Speaker will be Commander William “Mac” McLucas from Orange Park VFW Post #5968. As part of our celebration, the Clay County students who won our second anniversary essay contest will present their essays. Other students that received honorable mention will be recognized. All of these students did a tremendous job. We thank each and every student that submitted an essay. This year’s winners are as follows: Elementary – “What is Veterans Day?”: First Place- Melissa Mora, S Bryan Jennings Elementary

(www.thcenter.org/gallerysoldier)

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Honorable Mention: Jayla Groleau, Yeji Jasmie Hur, Richard Long and Hope Upshaw. Junior High – “Why do Veterans deserve our support, respect and understanding?”: First Place- Hailey Smith, Oakleaf Junior HIgh Honorable Mention: Soffia Bandril, Arryanna Jordan, Terra Ann Rowe and Jacob Yoast Senior High – “Why do you think it is important to celebrate Veterans Day?”: Hannah Madeline Clark, Clark Christian Academy Honorable Mention: Stephanie Hannah Belding The Veterans Memorial Committee continues to receive orders for inscribed brick pavers that are installed at the site. Order forms are available at the memorial site, in the Orange Park Library or may be downloaded from the HSOP website www.ophistory.org If you are interested in purchasing an inscribed paver to honor a veteran you may download a form from our website www.ophistory.org or pick up a form in the box at the memorial site. We will be installing pavers in time for Veterans Day. For more information call Carolyn Day 215-9177. Pavers are $50 each.

Wreaths Across America Along with 850 other National cemeteries in the country and over parts of the world, the Wreaths Across America organization will be honoring our Fallen Veterans at noon, Saturday, December 13, 2014 at the Clay County (Community) Cemetery in Keystone Heights. They will be having their program at same time as all National cemeteries. During the year volunteers along with Joan Jones of Keystone, chairman and Kevin Eck of Middleburg, Co-chairman have been out selling these beautiful wreaths to the public, businesses, etc. You can purchase one or many more wreaths for $15 each. They will be delivered during the week prior to the ceremony. Those attending the ceremony will be asked to place one of the wreaths on a veteran’s grave at that time. We ask you to place an order over the phone to Kevin (904-477-3352 or Joan (904-894-8411) by November 15th WAA Deadline - All wreaths must be made payable to Wreaths Across America also on the check be sure this CODE ID# FLKHMG is included on the check otherwise any National or Community cemetery in the country will be the receiver of your wreaths. Send your order to Kevin Eck, C/O- Vietnam Vets & Legacy Riders Group, 5553 S.E 3rd Ave, Keystone Heights FL 32656 OR Joan Jones, 6030 Blueberry Hill Rd, Keystone Heights, FL 32656.

Mandarin Museum and Historical Society

"Jacksonville Politics Through the Eyes of a Cartoonist!"

The last Third Thursday Lecture of 2014 is going to be fascinating as well known and highly respected Mandarin resident, Ed Gamble, will be telling stories about some politicians he has met, including President Reagan, Governor Graham and Governor Crist and showing some of his cartoons related to local politics and political figures. Gamble was an editorial cartoonist for The Florida Times-Union from 1980 until 2010. An award-winning cartoonist, he has been nationally syndicated and his cartoons have been published in newspapers and exhibits all over the United States and the world, including overseas in China and at the American Center

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in Karachi, Pakistan. They are permanently displayed at the Texas Depository in Dallas, Texas and at the Ford, Carter, Nixon, Reagan and Bush Presidential Libraries. He has won more than 50 national, regional and state awards for his cartoons, including four Wilbur Awards from the National Religion Communicators Council. Gamble was one of 15 cartoonists to be invited for a luncheon with President Reagan in the White House in 1986 and in the same year was invited to attend Pope John Paul's address to the nation's communication leaders in Los Angeles. Ed Gamble is the author of "You Get Two For The Price of One" (Pelican 1996) with forwards written by Presidents Ford and Bush and a co-author of "A Cartoon History of the Reagan Years" (Regnery, 1988)

Born and raised in Morristown, Tennessee, a small Appalachian town near the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, Ed graduated with a B.A. degree from The University of South Florida and attended post-graduate school at the University of Tennessee. He and his wife, Saundra have lived in Mandarin since 1981. The images that will be shown at this lecture are from the Special Collections at the Thomas G. Carpenter Library at University of North Florida, which houses over 2000 of Gamble's cartoons on local and state events. This free event, November 20, is hosted by the Mandarin Museum & Historical Society in partnership with the Mandarin Community Club. It will be held at the Community Club, located at 12447 Mandarin Road. Refreshments are served at 6:30 and the program begins at 7:00 PM. Please call 268-0784 or email mandarinmuseum@bellsouth.net for more information. Checkout the museum website at www.mandarinmuseum.net and the Mandarin Community Club website at www.mandarincommunityclub.org.

Upcoming Events Calendar November 3: Decluttering Your Family Photos, Clay County Library, Fleming Island November 10: Monthly Meeting at Clarke House – 6:30 PM November 11: Veterans Day Ceremony, Veterans Memorial at Magnolia Cemetery. 11 AM November 20: Third Thursday Lecture, Mandarin Community Center November 22: The American Soldier - A Photographic Tribute, Thrasher-Horne Center for the

Arts, 11:30 AM December 8: Monthly Meeting and Christmas Dinner at Clarke House, 6 PM December 12 & 13: Hometown Holiday in the Park, Clarke Park

LR: University of North Florida President, John

Delaney and Ed Gamble

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Other News

Quilt Raffle The Historical Society of Orange Park was given a "Cake Mix" quilt 74" X 87" by Mrs. Janice McGilton (Carolyn Day's sister) to raffle off this year! Our sincere thanks to Janice for her generous support. All proceeds from raffle ticket sale ($1 each or 6 for $5) support our many community service programs. Ticket are available at our monthly meetings and all our events or by calling Carolyn at 215-9177.

Help Save Our Sound The Town of Orange Park has offered the Historical Society the opportunity to save the audio recordings of the town's council meetings going back to the 1960’s. They have written minutes of these meetings but are running out of storage space for the tapes. Contained within those tapes, which would otherwise be thrown away, are the exchanges from past council meetings during the 9-11 alarms, the creation of the OP Mall, the opening of the Buckman Bridge, and more close to our own hearts, all the banter regarding the preservation of the Clarke House. As the Historical Society of Orange Park we are the logical choice to keep the tapes that matter to the history of the town. We need your help! If several people can adopt a year (or perhaps two?) to scrutinize we can decided which tapes to save and which we can part with. Those worth saving can be digitized for the future. Please contact Cindy Cheatwood (ckcheatwood@hotmail.com or 707-0822) if you can help. There are two ways to determine which tapes contain must-save material, by using the actual tapes and listen for which to save, or by reading written minutes and noting the tapes that contain significant topics. While there is not a definite end date as to when this must be done, the Town is ready to have the tapes moved out. Sooner is much better than later. If you have a few minutes to listen to a tape or scan through printed meeting minutes to summarize the points of discussion, please contact Cindy.

Clarke House Centennial Ornaments Just a reminder that Clarke House Centennial wood ornaments are still available for sale. These Limited Edition 100th Anniversary of Clarke House ornaments can be purchased for $10 each. The ornament comes boxed and ready for gift giving. The Clarke House ornament provides an attractive reminder of the Clarke House and its place in Orange Park history and the life of our society.

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Clarke House Shed We are happy to report that work to restore the brick chimney at the Clarke House Shed was recently completed. The chimney had be cracked and in poor condition. The restoration work was sorely needed and leaves the chimney in great condition. The roof flashing around the chimney was also repaired. This completes the restoration work on the shed.

Historic Homes of Florida’s First Coast Photographer and author, Mary Atwood, recently completed a new book entitled “Historic Homes of Florida’s First Coast”. During preparation of this book, Ms. Atwood visited and photographed Clarke House. Photos of Clarke House are included in her new book. Copies of two of these photos are now displayed in Clarke House. Mary will be in attendance at Home Town Holiday in the Park next month and will be selling copies of her book at the Clarke House. Please make plans to stop by and visit and take home a copy.

Historic Homes of Florida’s First Coast By Mary Atwood & Williams Weeks with a full-color insert and a foreword by Dr. Wayne W. Wood, founder of one of the largest neighborhood preservation groups in the South—Riverside Avondale Preservation, Inc. Some of the earliest European settlers colonized Northeast Florida when it was little more than a wilderness. Today, the area is rich in multicultural heritage and historic significance, and its historic homes stand as a testament to its intriguing past. Step inside a Second Spanish Period structure that was home to European royalty and visited by iconic film star Greta Garbo. Visit the places that inspired works such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s Pulitzer prize–winning novel The Yearling and British composer Frederick Delius’s masterpiece, Florida Suite. Author and award-winning photographer Mary Atwood explores the homes of early colonial settlers, wealthy plantation owners, illustrious Florida artists and those responsible for shaping Florida’s First Coast.

Sunshine Please keep these members in your thoughts and prayers:

Dot Patterson Trudy Sigman Lee Bentley

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The DeMarco House, Stiles Avenue, Orange Park

By Mary Ellen DeMarco

Background

This house is part of the River Road Historic

district. It was placed on the National

Register of Historic Places on July 15, 1998

The house was completed in 1926. It is a

center hall colonial-revival style house.

It originally was a three bedroom house.

There was a sleeping porch on the east side

of the house.

“An 11-room English bungalow of brown

stained shingles was completed this week for

Mrs. C.F. Knight. Mrs. Knight will also open her

tea room on Stiles Avenue. She formerly lived

on Kingsley Avenue. “

Clay County Times

Christmas Edition 1926

The house was built for Mr. and Mrs. C.F. Knight.

We obtained these pictures of the house and Mr. & Mrs. Knight from

one of their granddaughters. She stopped by the house one day

asking to see the house. She let us copy the photos. These photos

have been very valuable in restoring the house.

If one looks in the background of this picture one can see the porch

rails on the upper level. This was the sleeping porch. When we

removed the old paneling in this area we found the original porch

railings in the wall!

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Restoration. The restoration of this house has been on-going, and a labor of love. We purchased the house in March of 1996. There was a lot of work to be done both inside and out. Joe and I had been married less than a year when we purchased this house and sometimes I think we really did not know what we were getting into! We had to come up with a plan with respect to how we could restore the house. We wanted to make it a comfortable family home while still paying respect to its history. We did a lot of research and attended a convention about historic preservation and restoration. The first steps were to have a couple of rooms that we could live in and be comfortable while we restored the house. This resulted in working on the family room and two bedrooms first. The master bedroom required too much work, so we moved into one of the smaller bedrooms. The master bedroom and bath were not done until the spring of 1999 due to the amount of other work in other areas of the house that needed to take precedence. We compiled a list (a long one) of jobs and then prioritized them in terms of critical, necessary repairs down to the cosmetic fixes like interior painting of rooms that were basically in pretty good shape. We also divided the jobs into what we could do ourselves and what jobs required licensed professionals. The first job we did was restoring the footings of the house in the crawlspace. A structurally important job but not very glamorous. We then turned out attention to the exterior of the house. When we purchased the house it had been painted a very dark blue. The paint was peeling on the shingles and windows. It was important to us to keep the original cedar shingles and windows. This resulted in us completely scraping all the old (and many layers) of paint. The original color of the house was a brown stain. As much as we tried we could not remove all the old paint from everywhere in the house so the shingles needed to be painted. The layers of paint revealed the house had been brown, gray, gold and blue. We decided on a historic light yellow color from the Benjamin Moore historic paint collection. We completed painting the house in 1997 and currently repainted the house in 2013. We have done many jobs inside the house including completely gutting two bathrooms, upgrading electricity, re-plumbing the house. We have also painted every room. Each project was done with the idea of preserving original details wherever possible while making the house a comfortable family home. It has been a long journey to bring our home to its current condition. There are still projects to be completed as there are with any home. It has been a pleasure to restore an important part of Orange Park’s history.

Look For Us on Facebook Look for the Historical Society of Orange Park the next time you visit Facebook. Check our page for updates on society activities and updates on the Veterans Memorial. Don’t forget to click “Like” on our page.

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Membership in the Historical Society of Orange Park We encourage you to support our mission to preserve the history of Orange Park and share that history with the community by becoming a member of the Historical Society of Orange Park. We also ask your support and participation for the many community activities we undertake during the course of the year. You can visit our website, www.ophistory.org, to download a membership form.

Happy Thanksgiving!